Coronavirus is really bad. But there's always a silver lining! Here are three things that I think constitute it. And how we can keep them going after our long national nightmare is over. 1. Zoom City Government Meetings The single greatest thing to happen in the last 25 years to democracy as it exists in… Continue reading Silver Lining Playbook: 3 Good Things From in the Past 2 Months
I've been going on a lot of walks lately. Usually I take a left onto Geyer and keep going straight until I get to Kirkwood Park of take a right on Woodbine and weave my way towards downtown. One day last week though, I hooked a right on Big Bend for whatever reason and ended… Continue reading Meacham Park & the Looming Threat of Coronavirus
"Kirkwood is a train town" is a phrase often uttered. It is said in the same way that some places are called hockey towns or factory towns. And yet I would imagine that those things are much more regularly thought about, more central to life there, than trains have been to Kirkwood in a very… Continue reading The Case for Commuter Rail
People love streets. If a candidate could somehow ensure that they'd fix all the streets in Kirkwood, they could run on any platform they desired, build a fourteen story tall McDonalds on every corner say, and win the election going away. I, however, do not very much care about streets at all. At least with… Continue reading Bike Lanes & Street Re-Paves
Hello, this is not a story but instead an ask. During the pandemic the already struggling local-journalism industry has taken an especially hard hit. While the news keeps coming and is being read more widely and by more people than almost any other time, ad revenue, the engine that sustains local journalism has plummeted. Some… Continue reading Support the Webster-Kirkwood Times
Last Thursday I published a story highlighting some of the items on that night's City Council agenda. One of the items I left out of that story is likely to be the most exciting. It wasn't an oversight, I just hadn't gathered all the info yet. But now I have so let's dig in to… Continue reading West Essex.
Manchester Road is the chicken and the egg problem at a Kirkwood-sized scale. New developments are built as auto-centric and car oriented because Manchester accommodates nothing else, and the Manchester corridor accommodates nothing else because everything that is built along it is built in an auto-centric way. If Manchester is to ever improve, if the… Continue reading Manchester Road
Update 04/17/2020 Since this article was first published the roads in Kirkwood Park have been closed to vehicular traffic which is a huge win! The fight goes on in trying to get beg buttons turned off as well as in getting some streets in Downtown Kirkwood opened to foot traffic. It appears that Trailnet has… Continue reading Coronavirus & Walkability: A Gameplan
A new 125-unit, mixed-use, independent living project is in the works for 300-350 N. Kirkwood Road, a site currently occupied by Commerce Bank and its parking lot. Sound familiar? No, this is not the Kirkwood Flats/UMB Bank proposal, (that one would be across the street), but rather a brand new project in what is turning… Continue reading 125 Apartments Coming to Commerce Bank Site?
On Thursday February 27th, Kirkwood City Council will hold a public hearing on the proposed changes to our zoning code. Those changes cover four-ish main areas: Single-family lot coverage, multi-family density and height, signage, and bicycle parking. Lots of things will be tweaked but it appears that very little will change. All streets inside circle… Continue reading Height, ADUs & Kirkwood’s Backwards Vision
